Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday for “playing footsie” with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who hosted a conference she attended on Friday.
“Associating with anti-Semitic neo-Nazis is not consistent with the conservative values I’ve defended for decades. Representative Taylor-Greene playing footsie with Nick Fuentes and his splinter movement is shameful,” Pompeo tweeted.
On Friday, Greene attended a white nationalist conference in Orlando, Fla., organized by Fuentes, a far-right podcaster who has made multiple antisemitic remarks. Greene later claimed to not know Fuentes’s views and said she only attended to “talk to the audience.”
Photos of the event showed Fuentes shaking Greene’s hand. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) also attended the event.
Pompeo has himself been accused of espousing racist rhetoric. One day before leaving office in 2021, Pompeo tweeted from his official account that “multiculturalism” was not “who America is,” drawing swift criticism.
Other Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), have also condemned Green and Gosar for the attendance at the white nationalist event.
“I’m reminded of the old line from the ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ movie, where one character says, ‘Morons, I have morons on my team,'” Romney said of Green and Gosar while appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Cheney tweeted, “As Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling.”